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The grand monkey gland

To tide you over until the imminent cessation of this blog’s unexpected hibernation, here’s some of what you come here for: food and science. Well it’s drink and science in this case. And the science part is that there are beakers and gloves involved. And that most of the people at the table were scientists.

May I present the Monkey Gland Hand, a cocktail at Salon Lounge here in Brisbane. I went there with a group of friends for my birthday very recently and we partook of some rather elaborate and creative cocktails.

(Harvesting the Monkey Gland Hand is a precision operation.)

The Monkey Gland Hand is Beefeater gin, Kubler Swiss absinthe, blood orange juice and homemade grenadine glaze: a slight variation of the original Monkey Gland cocktail, served as you can see in a surgical glove, on a surgical tray, with surgical scissor and a beaker. The person who served it to us also gave us a slightly garbled version of this Wikipedia article on Serge Voronoff as an explanation for the drink’s origins (short version: attaching monkey testicles to people for purportedly therapeutic purposes in the 1920s – of course).

If you’re now in the mood for cocktails but the contents of these seem a bit too encyclopaedic or unattainable or hatefully complex, don’t forget 12 Bottle Bar for something maybe a tiny bit more simplified, but just as effective.

However, you must always consider surgical gloves as serving vessels for all imbibable liquids, from this day forth. I know I will.